Attorneys for Tennessee death row inmate Edmund Zagorski (inset) on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018, asked a federal court to force the state to use the electric chair to execute him, rather than lethal injection. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File/Jose Romero/Tennessee Department of Corrections/AFP/Getty Images/HO)

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has granted death row inmate Edmund Zagorski a 10-day reprieve, marking the latest surprise development in the chaotic legal challenges surrounding the inmate, who has requested to die in the electric chair.

Zagorski had been set to be executed 7 p.m. Thursday, but that was halted after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted a stay over concerns of inadequate representation.

As the state rushed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling and ensure the execution took place as scheduled, a separate federal judge barred the state from using lethal injection to kill Zagorski after it refused his request to die in the electric chair.

Tennessee is only of nine states that allow electrocutions. The last electrocution in the U.S. took place in Virginia in January 2013.

Zagorski asked to be executed by electrocution just days before his execution because he said the three-drug cocktail the state used constituted cruel and unusual punishment and violated his constitutional rights.

However, the state denied his request, arguing Zagorski waited too long to ask for the electric chair. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger disagreed with that decision and barred the state’s lethal injection method so both Zagorski’s request could be honoured and more time would be allowed to review the state’s lethal cocktail.

“I take seriously the responsibility imposed upon the Tennessee Department of Correction and me by law,” Haslam said in a statement. “And given the federal court’s decision to honour Zagorski’s last-minute decision to choose electrocution as the method of execution, this brief reprieve will give all involved the time necessary to carry out the sentence in an orderly and careful manner.”

The Republican governor had said he wouldn’t intervene in Zagorski’s case.

The temporary reprieve will be in effect until Oct. 21. It’s still unknown when Zagorski’s new execution date will be set.

Shortly after the Republican governor’s announcement, the Department of Correction said it would return Zagorski to death row after moving him to a “death watch” cell earlier this week.

“Tennessee’s death penalty statute makes it clear that Mr. Zagorski has the right to choose execution by electrocution,” said Kelley Henry, one of Zagorski’s attorneys, in a statement. “While being burned alive and mutilated via electricity is not a good death, Mr. Zagorski knows that death by electric chair will be much quicker than lethal injection using midazolam, a paralytic, and potassium chloride.”

Zagorski’s attorneys also pointed out that the stay from the federal appeals court remains in effect, as well as a separate motion asking the high court for a delay over claims the state’s lethal injection method is unconstitutional.

That means even if the justices overturn the federal appeals court decision regarding proper representation, according to Zagorski’s attorneys, the court still has the opportunity to halt the execution over lethal injection concerns.

Zagorski was sentenced in 1984 in the slayings of two men during a drug deal. Prosecutors said Zagorski shot John Dotson and Jimmy Porter, then slit their throats after robbing them in Robertson County in April 1983. The victims had planned to buy marijuana from Zagorski.

He’s been on death row for 34 years, the second longest in Tennessee.

Zagorski’s decision to ask for electrocution was based on evidence that Tennessee’s lethal injection method would cause him 10 to 18 minutes of mental and physical anguish. He argues the electric chair will be quicker even if it means being set on fire.

In Tennessee, death row inmates whose offences came before January 1999 can choose either lethal injection or the electric chair. The last time Tennessee put someone to death by electrocution was in 2007.

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